A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



previous low prices, which had impoverished the farmers. Certainly the 

 fluctuations must have caused great distress, and in addition to the ordinary 

 attempts to supervise and regulate the prices and supply of corn, the magistrates 

 complain of the difficulty of setting to work the many poor farm servants who 

 had been perforce dismissed by their masters when the harvest failed. 18 ' 



The effects of this distress did not pass away quickly, to judge from a 

 letter from various Nottingham county gentlemen in 1625 protesting against 

 the heaviness of the loan demanded by the government. The increase of 

 industry already noticed had not been sufficient to prevent the petitioners 

 from declaring that the county possessed neither trade nor manufactures, 

 neither lead, iron, nor hidden treasure. Thus it was largely dependent on 

 agriculture ; and so much was still forest that the good land was said to be 

 hardly sufficient to supply the people's needs. Hence the losses caused by the 

 recent floods of the Trent and by bad harvests were such that the best grains 

 wherewith the farmer paid his rent had failed. Not one in ten, it was 

 declared, were as well off as they had been twelve or sixteen years ago. Not 

 only landowners and tenants, but the class of yeomen hitherto so flourishing 

 were decaying 'by the deadness of commodities.' m 



This last clause, which speaks of the decay of the yeomanry as a recent 

 thing, is confirmed by the list of freeholders in various manors in 1612 

 given by Thoroton. The number, though by no means all the villages are 

 included, is so great as to make it clear that the small owner was still an 

 important factor, though his power was overshadowed by the much more 

 striking growth of the greater gentry. At the same time the economic 

 tendency of the time was against him, and its results perhaps appear in the 

 letter quoted above ; though, considering the object of the document, the 

 colours were probably rendered as dark as possible. 



The next few years were, however, far from prosperous. In 1630-3 the 

 harvests again failed ; and but for the charity of those who gave help at 

 reasonable prices and on trust many poor husbandmen would not have had 

 corn to sow for the next harvest. 188 The justices were again busied trying to 

 find work for the servants dismissed in the time of dearth : 189 by this time 

 however (1631) the administration of the poor-law according to the Act of 

 Elizabeth (1601) seems to have got into working order. 'Inquisition' was 

 made after rogues and vagabonds and those who relieved them. Cases of 

 poor and impotent persons were reported to the justices by the church- 

 wardens and overseers, who stated what was done to relieve them, and also 

 how a town ' stock' was raised for setting them to work and for apprenticing 

 poor children. 190 



To find work was difficult except in the neighbourhood of the mines. 

 Agricultural work was usually done by the families of the husbandmen them- 

 selves, who objected to taking apprentices ' for want ' when they also were 

 poor, and the difficulty must have been increased when, as was reported in 

 1634, the apprentices ran away, or, being encouraged by their parents, behaved 

 so ill that their masters were very unwilling that they should serve out their 

 term. 191 Further, the magistrates complained of the desolation of the country, 

 owing to the inclosures (' there be few habitations among us that live in the 



" S.P. Dora. Jas. I, cxl, 10. "" Ibid. Chas. I, x, 61. IM Ibid, clxxxvii, 28. 



l * Ibid, clxxxlx, 12. " Ibid, cxciii, 79. '" Ibid, cclxxii, 40. 



290 



